CV NEWS FEED // Amid rising numbers of Catholic converts, a Catholic professor at Word on Fire and Loyola Marymount University wrote that the Church is becoming increasingly attractive to young people around the world because it is real and cannot be digitized.
Christopher Kaczor wrote in an article for Word on Fire that countries around the world, including Austria, Belgium, Canada, Mongolia, Sweden, and England, are seeing record numbers of young adult converts.
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He noted that some have tried to explain the increase in religiosity by pointing to the COVID-19 pandemic, as catastrophes have corresponded with sudden piety throughout history. However, five years after the pandemic’s beginning and two years after the World Health Organization declared it officially over, conversions are still on the rise.
Kaczor wrote that “winsome and intelligent online presentations of the Catholic faith” can have an attractive effect on truth-seeking young adults who don’t want a “dumbed-down” version of Catholicism. He also credited deep experiences of beauty with bringing many to the Church, sharing a personal experience of celebrating Holy Week at the University of Notre Dame that convicted him of young adults’ desire for beauty and ritual.
Kaczor cited a New York Post article that interviewed a recent convert, Sydney Johnston, who said: “There’s just something so beautiful and transcendent about the rituals and the ancient history in the Catholic Mass that’s been preserved. . . . The church really communicates a degree of reverence that I didn’t find in the more liberal, laissez-faire approach of nondenominational churches.”
Kaczor commented, “Although many people begin their journey to the Church online, the destination is personal, concrete, and incarnational.”
He added that “The Church is in a prime position to supply what is lacking in today’s culture,” citing an April 21 article by Jeffrey Pojanowski in the Public Discourse, who wrote that the concreteness of the Church’s sacraments, liturgies, and rituals provide a revolution that “will not be digitized.”
“As so many young people around the world have recently discovered,” Kaczor concluded, “the Church offers what cannot be found anywhere else.”
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